Yes abuse of the “commons” does seem to spread quickly when money is involved.

Certainly Google is concerned about Mapspam and I am glad that they are taking a proactive role in fighting it.

But the caveats I see are:
1)Google’s response has been erratic and slow. Sometimes they respond immediately, sometimes they don’t respond at all. Sometimes they remove by hand, sometimes not. So it leaves a hanging feeling about what and why…

2)it is not clear what is mapspam from their perspective and they have left things up for months that I believe should have been removed.

3)Are they in fact working towards the standard of truth or is relevance still their benchmark. Because long haul I fear that the standard of relevance will be goal rather than truthfulness. I am hoping otherwise but only by speaking up now can we have even a small influence on the product of tomorrow.

I for one am hoping that local turns out not to be just an alternative avenue for shucksterism.